Protection of Children with Disabilities. Correlation of the UN Convention on the Children’s Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons

The UN Convention on child’s rights is not a sole international and legal treaty aimed at enhancing the extent of protection of children at both the international and domestic levels. In particular, the UN Convention on the rights of disabled persons contains prescriptions that are designed to ensure needs of children with disabilities, including the equality of opportunities in the area of education. The elimination of diversified discrimination of children with disabilities in accordance to this Convention should, inter alia, be performed through their dedicated integration into society and school. Whether an exclusively school education contributes to achieving such goal or whether other forms are acceptable too — this is a question requiring qualified discussion. The Convention on the rights of disabled persons permits various options of ensuring full-fledged development of the personality of a child with disabilities within the limits of individual states. It is being discussed in the article whether the provisions of the Convention are compulsory for the member states in each specific case. Besides, the correlation of the Convention on the rights of children and Convention on the rights of disabled persons is under review since it is the only way to identify the specific scope of the guarantees of children’s rights stipulated by the Convention. Regardless the fact that both international and legal treaties are aimed at ensuring the fullest protection of children, there are certain subtle differences in respect of the ways of their enforcement which might eventually appear to be material. The criteria for comparison are, for instance, enforceability of conventional provisions as well as their direct effect in domestic law and order. For Germany, for instance, the practice of the Federal Constitutional Court that repeatedly voiced about interpretation of the Basic Law of Germany in the light of international treaties on human rights.